and so it begins… Whiterocks shoot, 24-03-2012

Well, a couple of weeks ago, summer arrived in Northern Ireland (for about seven days, anyway). Luckily for me, it arrived on the day I was filming with a bunch of friends on the beach! Happy days…

To explain the background, I’m involved in a really exciting project for ni 2012: our time our place – basically the lovely people at Cinemagic and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board have asked me and five other filmmakers to shoot a series of one-minute documentaries about people over the course of 2012. They’ll be collated into a larger piece towards the end of the year.

For my first piece, I decided to make a film about Surfers Against Sewage, a group my friend Lauren told me about. Every year SAS encourages people to come along to a spring clean-up, where you get a big rubbish bag, a pair of gloves and one of those fun grabber-thingys and you pick up rubbish off the beach.

When the day arrived and the sun shone, it wasn’t difficult to persuade a group of friends – including Lauren and her Golden Retriever Walt – to pile into a seven-seater and drive up to Whiterocks with me.

Despite a few technical difficulties (the camera I was using decided to quit around an hour into the shoot, meaning I completed filming – in full HD – on an iPhone!) the day went really well. As sometimes happens, the focus of the documentary changed on the day and I decided the real story was about Lauren and Walt. I think you’ll see why, when you see them together in the film.

After a great morning filming, we all headed to Portrush for fish and chips, then to the Giant’s Causeway before heading home to Belfast.

The film itself should be done soon, but for now you can take a look behind the scenes with my friends and me. Big thanks to Ross who shot most of the footage on his BlackBerry. The music came from Free Royalty Free Music by DanoSongs.com.

Thanks to my friends for all their help and huge thanks to Helios for coming out to play.